Sunday, February 10, 2013

January Five Senses Unit

Fun with apples at snack time. Are they sweet or sour? We had so much fun with our five senses unit. Here are some of the activities the children engaged in with us and each other. There are many other activities from the plans of which we do not have photos. Some of our charted activities are posted in the hallway. Don't forget to read the plans from the weekly e-mails to get ideas for extending learning about our senses at home with your child.

Above and below you can see how the children finger painted on bubble wrap for sense of touch. When their painting was finished just the way they liked it, we laid a piece of paper on top of the bubble wrap to create a print. See our results in the hallway.

Below, we played the secret touch game. The children brought items from home which I placed inside the box. I helped the children hold one item and encourged them to describe how it felt: rough, smooth, long, small, large, soft, hard, etc. After they made a guess we showed the group the item. Were they correct? You could play this at home, hiding objects under a towel or blanket. Many of the activities we tried with this unit promoted language development by encouraging the use of adjectives instead of "It feels, smells, (etc.) good."

Having fun in the gym popping bubble wrap in our stocking feet. Some children stomped. My friend on the right was 'jumping fast'.

Below, we combined sense of smell and touch and sight to create scented playdough. First we measured ingredients and mixed it together. I had to use my mom muscles to get it just right! Then the children chose a kool-aid flavor to mix into their very own lump of playdough. Do you still have it? Is it still scented?

The aftermath! Thank goodness there are always some strong muscled table washers to help up clean up! Our room and the teachers smelled like kool-aid all day. When I arrived home around 4 p.m. my family said I smelled like fruit punch!

This T/Th friend brought us banana pudding mix and nilla wafers for a scented snack. We all took turns shaking up the pudding. I confess, I loathe bananas, but I put on a brave face and tasted it ;(

"Ms. Gwyn, this pudding smells like bananas!"

"Can I take your picture of you taking my picture?" my friend asked. We had cameras, binoculars and veiwmasters out for our send of sight day.

Out in the hall you will find the murals of 'things we like to look at and why'. Thanks to our parent volunteer, Ms. Heather for helping our M/W friends with their stories. We also promoted fine motor work, but helping the children pull the tape off the tape dispenser.

Using a mirror to aid the drawing of a self portrait for developmental assessments. A variety of materials are available to draw with: markers, colored pencils, crayons. "What body parts did you draw? Would you like to tell me anything else about your picture?"

Our friends are filling paper plates with beans and pasta to make shakers. "How does your shaker sound? Loud or soft? Does it have the right amount of filler? How could you make it louder? softer?"

I apologize for these photos. I forgot to rotate them when I labeled them....lean to the left. My friend is holding a pop tube. He is trying to look through it "like a telescope". As you extend the tube and close it again, the air popping noises combine to make a musical noise. The first day we had these out, we highly encouraged the aspect of using our sense of hearing to listen to the noises the tubes made. We also only put out about 8 tubes the first day, to promote good manners in sharing the tubes.

Later when the entire box of tubes was available, some friends in aftercare stretched out every tube and then connected them around the room to create a 'road'.

One of our sense of touch activities was painting our hands to make a secret surprise! At first my friend didn't want to participate in this activity, "I don't like to have my hands painted. Can we use a pencil?" So, we drew around his hands instead. Late after having a chance to play again and to watch his friends try the hand painting, my friend changed his mind. "OK, I would like to do it now. Can I?"

We extended the activity by letting the children make more hand prints on the mural paper. Some children enjoyed banging it like a drum.

"Ms. Tasha, you have to make one for your family! Can I paint you?"

"Yes, you can paint me. May I have pink and purple? They are my favorite colors."

"OK, I'll paint this hand pink and the other one purple."

"Ms. Gwyn can I paint your hands for Ms. Claudia's valentine?"

"Yes, thank you. Could you use blue and green? They are my favorite colors."

"Let's make this one blue first."

On our sense of taste day, we used our teeth to feel the taste buds on our tongues. The children had fun painting human, giraffe or lizard tongues. We used nerd candies to replicate taste buds and added lots of glue in the paint to make them stick.

For our tasting parties we tasted some sour things....

....or we tasted nothing, but politely waited for something we might like....

"No, thank you, I don't like it!"

"Thank you for staying with your friends and waiting for a new taste. I am proud of you for remembering to use your good manners."

.....some things contained "sugar to make things sweet" and that made us smile!

If we weren't sure of a new taste, we could take a 'lizard lick' to try it.